Perhaps the most frightening part of this 2006 video is that not one of these police officers objected to shooting rubber bullets at an unarmed woman’s head and laughing about it. Or if any of them did, they certainly did not feel comfortable enough to go against the majority of their fellow officers and make a point of it… And, just like my recent 2011 pre-Thanksgiving Day parade incident, I’m experiencing, hearing, and seeing more stories than ever of such treatment that don’t even involve protests or rallies (and that doesn’t even consider all the frightening TSA-abuse stories – against children no less!). It’s more about control and demoralizing compliance.

When an army goes to war, the command generally always comes up with some derogatory term to address the enemy, as it’s much easier to rape, demean, and/or kill people when you’re referring to them as “Gooks” or “Cockroaches”.

“In Rwanda they referred to Tutsis as cockroaches,” explains Omaar. “They were not human beings. This is very important to understand, [there are] very close parallels to what happened in Hitler’s Germany. [They said,] ‘Don’t worry, you’re not killing humans like you. You are killing some vermin that belongs under your shoe. You’re killing cockroaches.‘ – The Few Who Stayed – Defying Genocide in Rwanda (AmericanRadioWorks)

(NYTimes) “They called people ‘animals’ and ‘savages.’ One comment said, ‘Drop a bomb and wipe them all out.‘ .. Hearing New York police officers speak publicly but candidly about one another and the people they police is rare indeed, especially with their names attached. But for a few days in September, a raw and rude conversation among officers was on Facebook for the world to see — until it vanished for unknown reasons.” – N.Y.C. Police Maligned Paradegoers on Facebook (NYTimes)

(WashingtonsBlog) “Journalists from across the spectrum have documented the militarization of police forces in the United States, including, CNN, Huffington Post, the Cato Institute, Forbes, the New York Times, Daily Kos, Esquire, The Atlantic, Salon and many others. Many police departments laugh at and harass Americans who exercise their right to free speech. Indeed – especially since police brutality against protesters has been so blatant in recent months, while no top bank executives have been prosecuted – many Americans believe that the police are protecting the bankers whose fraud brought down the economy instead of the American people.”

“Most assume that the militarization of police started after 9/11. Certainly, Dick Cheney initiated Continuity of Government Plans on September 11th that ended America’s constitutional form of government (at least for some undetermined period of time.) On that same day, a national state of emergency was declared … and that state of emergency has continuously been in effect up to today. But the militarization of police actually started long before 9/11… in the 1980s.”

“SWAT teams were originally designed to be used in violent, emergency situations like hostage takings, acts of terrorism, or bank robberies. From the late 1960s to the early 1980s, that’s primarily how they were used, and they performed marvelously. .. But beginning in the early 1980s, they’ve been increasingly used for routine warrant service in drug cases and other nonviolent crimes. And thanks to the Pentagon transfer programs, there are now a lot more of them.”

“After 9/11 the government drew up the Patriot Act within 20 days and it was passed. The Patriot Act is huge and I remember someone asking a Justice Department official how did they write such a large statute so quickly, and of course the answer was that it has been sitting in the drawers of the Justice Department for the last 20 years waiting for the event where they would pull it out.”

“The militarization of police forces throughout the United States cannot be taken in a vacuum, but is part of the ongoing drift towards a police state. The government has said for years that American citizens on U.S. soil may be targets in the war on terror, and is using anti-terrorism laws to crush dissent.

Indeed, you can be labeled as or suspected of being a terrorist simply for questioning war, protesting anything, asking questions about pollution or about Wall Street shenanigans, supporting Ron Paul, being a libertarian, holding gold, or stocking up on more than 7 days of food. Government agencies such as FEMA are allegedly teaching that the Founding Fathers should be considered terrorists. So perhaps that means that any people who like American values are ‘terrorist sympathizers’. ”